Animal Sweaters and Nosey Friends
by fleurdelisee
Summary: When Blaine joins the King Island Christmas Spectacular show, he gets paired with one Rachel Berry who seems dead set on finding him a lover before Christmas.


_My friend gave me that idea after A Very Glee Christmas aired knowing very well I would not be able to resist writing it. Also, since I'm a scary method writer, I googled Kings Island. It's a theme park in Mason, Ohio, two hours from Westerville and two and a half from Lima. I call this 'information collecting'; normal people call this 'creepy stalking behaviour'. Blame It On The Alcohol and Original Songs smashed the canon of this to smithereens._

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><p>Blaine honestly could not remember agreeing for this. He was convinced his mother or Wes-and-David were behind it. He was definitely not the kind of person to agree to take part in Kings Island Christmas Spectacular. He was gay, but not <em>that<em>gay.

It was why the letter came as a surprise. So did the three phone calls and four emails. In the end, he had to give in and agree because apparently he signed a contract and they had found him a partner. They were also very thrilled to have him take part in their show and could not wait for the day to come. It was too much excitement and happiness for Blaine, and he was not even there yet.

Of course, no one could know about it. Even if it was his two-headed best friend who had signed him up, he would not give Wes and David the satisfaction of knowing he was going to take part in it.

Well, Kurt could know. Kurt already knew a lot of things that other people did not know. Kurt was different. Kurt was—Kurt was getting into his head and his heart and under his skin and even if Blaine had had boyfriends before – two, and one did not really count when he looked back at it – none of them created such reactions in Blaine's mind. He probably finally understood the difference between liking and loving someone.

He wasn't sure if it was reciprocated, though. Of course, he could see the way Kurt's eyes lingered on him and how he was possibly the only person the boy touched, but he also feared it might be a trick of his mind. That would not stop him from making a move, once he gathered his courage.

Blaine figured the first step might be to show Kurt that the 'only friends' plan he had at first come up with had been thrown away. The best way he could find without actually telling Kurt he wanted to kiss him in the rain, and other cliché things, was to ask him to help him rehearse the song he had to do for that Christmas Spectacular thing.

It went well, better than he expected. Kurt had a habit of running away or stepping out of the mood whenever it got too much but that time, he stayed in character until the end. The smile and longing stares they exchanged once the song was over confirmed to Blaine that it was safe to make a move without being turned down. And maybe he eavesdropped when Kurt was talking to his former teacher, but that part Blaine would never tell anyone.

The thing was, though, that as he arrived at Kings Island way too early for any human to be two hours away from their bed, he wished he had invited Kurt to come see him. It would have given him someone to talk to and, as Kurt mentioned himself, he could have hoped that his partner would not show up and they might have let them sing it together. Instead, Blaine was left alone in the dressing room they had all been assigned reading a textbook while he waited for his partner to show up so they could rehearse.

Well, rehearse was generous. He had been told that they might have the time to sing the song once together before having to get lunch while preparing to go on stage at one in the afternoon. He definitely wanted to be somewhere else. His only consolation was that Mason was too far from Westerville for any of his friends to show up.

He looked up from his textbook when he noticed someone standing in front of him.

"Hi, I'm Rachel Berry. I'm your partner for Baby It's Cold Outside, the wonderful 1949 duet we were asked to perform."

Blaine looked at her, at the horrendous sweater with a penguin on it, and then it clicked in his mind. Rachel Berry. Kurt had told him about her. He was scared, now.

"Hi, my name's Blaine. Nice to meet you," he replied, getting up to shake her hand.

"You're with The Warblers, right? I think saw you at Sectionals."

"I am. Shall we rehearse?"

"No time for that, darlings, you're the first ones on stage. Get in your stage clothes and get moving!" the director said, poking his head through the door.

"Don't worry, I have been singing this song since I was three years old. Everything is going to be fine."

She then hurried to get changed and Blaine was left there, feeling like nothing was going to be fine. This girl had an aura of madness to her and well, she was a girl. Blaine was not very good with girls. They had a tendency to fall in love with him. He was running out of polite ways to say 'sorry, your gender turns me off'.

"You're not changed yet? We have to go on stage in five minutes!" Rachel shrieked as she came back, wearing a red dress that made her look eleven years old.

He hurriedly left the room before she could murder him with her eyes and he changed into the tuxedo he had been handed. It was too big for him and he had to roll the pants not to walk on them. This show was going to be so much fun.

Rachel clung to his arm as they left the dressing room to go backstage. She also did not stop talking, which made Blaine feel slightly uncomfortable, especially when she started talking about her ex-boyfriend. If she started to cry, Blaine might have to shoot himself.

"—and it's nice you know that you're short, it'll make singing together easier. My neck hurt after doing it with Finn because I had to look up all the time. This place is so nice, isn't it? I do this show every year. I think it's a good way to showcase my talent outside of glee club, where it's harder to shine, you know? It's the first time I see you here. I'm glad you are here, way better than my previous partner, it was like I was the first girl he ever saw, my ex-boyfriend kept saying that—"

Blaine blocked her out, trying to find ways to ask Kurt out. He thought he had found a good one — one that was romantic enough without being cheesy but still grandiose enough to get him the boy — when they were told to get on stage. Rachel let go of the vice-like grip she had on his arm and said 'just follow my lead' before crossing the stage to stand on the other side of it. Blaine came out too and rolled his eyes when he saw the size of the crowd. It was too big for his liking.

Just before the song started, he caught a flash of navy blue and red. If he were paranoid, he would think he saw a Dalton uniform. Before he could check again, the song started and he had to focus on not missing his cue.

As soon as he opened his mouth, he saw Rachel's eyes widening. She joined in and he had to agree that she had a really beautiful voice. He guessed that, from an outsider's point of view, their voices harmonised well. He could not ignore the faces she pulled while singing. Kurt had told him about them and he could not see anything else than that.

He became slightly scared when Rachel started chasing him around the piano with _those_eyes, the ones he suspected he had when looking at Kurt. He tried to make her understand that it was supposed to be the other way around; that the girl was supposed to want to go away, but that did not work. When Blaine tried to turn this around, she stayed by his side and clung to his arm again. He frowned at her, nodding his head to tell her to step away, but then the part about her lips looking delicious arrived and he saw it happen in her eyes, the moment when she began having a crush on him.

They left the stage and Rachel was still holding his arm. They found out they were not allowed to leave yet, that they would have to go back on stage at the end. The prospect of spending two hours with her made him feel sick to the stomach. She looked like a nice girl – no matter what Kurt had told him – and he really hoped he was mistaken. He did not want to have to tell her that he was playing on a completely different team.

It was easier to ignore her when she kept talking, Blaine noticed. He could just block her out and nod when she stopped to breathe. Well, that worked until she started asking him questions as they sat in the cantina to have lunch.

"Do you have a girlfriend, Blaine?"

"Hum. No, I don't."

She smiled widely and he looked down at his egg salad sandwich. It was coming, he could feel it hanging in the air between them.

"It was a lot of fun, today. Maybe we could do this sometime again?"

"Yeah, maybe," he mumbled, playing with his baby carrots.

"You know, there's this really good movie in theatres right now, if you ever wanted to go see it. I know we don't know each other but I could use a normal friendship with a guy, you know?"

Yeah, he knew. It would begin as a friendship and then she would try something and he would break her heart. It had happened before.

"Rachel, I'm—" he began, resigned to tell her right away.

"I'm not hitting on you, don't worry! I mean, of course you are handsome and have a very, _very_beautiful voice that harmonises so well with mine, and I'm sure we would look good together, with you not being too tall and—"

"Rachel—" He tried again.

"After my relationship with Finn, I need a break from all this dating drama. Of course, if we happened to develop feelings for one another I would not turn you down because we'd make such a beautiful couple, you the dark and mysterious beau and me, the gorgeous ingénue with the amazing voice—"

"Rachel, please—"

"I know my friend Kurt would tell me I'm being creepy right now. I'm not trying to be creepy. I just want a normal relationship with someone equally as talented as me."

"Kurt! I know Kurt. I'm a close friend of Kurt!" He was trying to make her realise it by herself. It was his last hope.

"Really? Of course you do, I should have asked before, you're from Dalton Academy. How is he adjusting? Is he making friends? Or, you know, do you know of any love interest he might have? You see, if we became friends, we could have dinner the three of us and catch up and it would be so much fun and—"

"Listen, Rachel," he finally cut her, pushed to the limit of his patience. "No offense to you and your truly hideous animal sweaters, which I'm fairly certain Kurt would burn given the opportunity, but I'm gay. Like, _really_gay. Kurt can back me up on that. You're just too... female for my tastes. To put it crudely, dicks before chicks."

"But wha—"

"I love dicks, Rachel!" he said a bit too loudly, causing everyone within a ten feet radius to look at him. "Okay? You're a very nice girl and you're really pretty but the only person I want to date right now is Kurt. I'm sorry to break it down to you harshly but I don't want you to get your hopes high."

Instead of looking crushed and ashamed like _every single girl he ever told_, she had a large smile on her face and looked like she was plotting some sort of evil plan.

"This is so wonderful!" she finally said enthusiastically. "Well, it's also saddening to see that, once again, Kurt is my competition, but you two would be so cute together! You have to make this happen! And then I can win Finn again and we'll have double dates – you know he and Kurt are step-brothers, right? – and it's going to be so awesome!"

"Rachel, please calm down. I have a plan in seven steps to win Kurt over. I know what I'm doing."

"Oh you think? I've known Kurt for a year, now. _Seven steps_? At this rate, you'll see him with another guy before you reach the second one."

"You can't blame me for wanting to be romantic."

"Please," she said, exasperated. "Kurt doesn't want a romantic guy who's going to take him out on dates forever. Before you, he loved Finn. A football player. I know what I'm talking about, there's nothing romantic in him unless you explain what romantic is. You have to be bold! Take him by surprise!"

"Hum, no. Not by surprise. That's not—" The name 'Karofsky' was flashing in his head as he replied.

"Alright, then, but don't leave him hanging. I know Kurt, he'll start thinking you're not interested and he'll move on. He is terrifyingly good at repressing his emotions when they are not appropriate." He had to agree that she was right on that point. Kurt was very good at being emotionless. It was why it took Blaine so long to realise he had his chance with him. "I'll take you to meet my dads after the show, they can give you advice on dating a guy," she said, patting his arm with a comforting smile.

"_Dads_?"

"Kurt never told you? I have two gay dads. They'll be happy to help you win over our golden boy."

"That's really nice of you, Rachel, but, please, don't go out of your way for me."

"It's not for you. It's for Kurt. My love life is down in the gutter right now so the only thing I can do for Christmas – even though I'm a Jew and do not celebrate this holiday – is to help a friend have a boyfriend before he graduates high school, which, right now, I doubt will happen."

"Who's getting a boyfriend?"

Blaine nearly got a whiplash from turning around too fast when he heard Kurt's voice. He saw, to his horror, his friends standing behind him, smirking.

"Kurt!" Rachel said, getting up to hug him. "We were talking about you just now! Come sit down."

"No, we were not," Blaine said quickly, moving his chair over so Kurt could fit in next to him. David and Wes sat on Rachel's side.

"I was asking Blaine how you were adjusting to life at Dalton." She looked at Blaine, eyebrows raised. "We really miss you at McKinley. There's no one now to support me when I want to do Gaga songs."

Kurt pouted and put his hand on hers on the table, squeezing it.

"This is such a shame. I bet Mr Schue found other Journey songs you hadn't covered yet?"

"Worse. He tried to have us cover Michael Bolton. Puck threatened to vandalise something to go back to juvie if he forced us to do it. I think he's not over Ms Pillsbury getting married."

"I'm glad I left, then," Kurt said with a laugh. "We're working on another Katy Perry song right now. Way better, even if it's not Gaga."

"Don't start this again, Kurt," Blaine threatened him playfully.

"I'm only saying that Gaga is way more inventive and original than Perry, that's all!"

"But Katy does not need sex or religious scandals to sell!"

"_Anyway_, this is beside the point. You two were amazing up there," Kurt said, his eyes meeting Blaine's for a fleeting moment.

"Thanks!" Rachel was beaming. "Blaine is a really good partner. You're lucky, Kurt." She glanced sideways at Wes and David, who were biting down smiles.

"Lucky…?"

"Well, to have such a wonderful boyfriend!"

Blaine choked on his apple juice box while Kurt turned a deep shade of red.

"We're not—"

"Yeah! We're not—it's not that I don't—I mean—"

"Exactly! I wouldn't—but you know."

Blaine and Kurt looked at each other and Blaine saw understanding dawning on Kurt's face.

"Why didn't you say anything?" he finally let out, half-annoyed and half-unbelieving.

"I was going to! I just wanted to make sure you—"

"Did you need a neon sign? Gosh, you're thick." Kurt was trying to look at him hardly but all Blaine could see was tenderness and utmost glee.

Rachel, David and Wes exchanged high fives, much to Blaine's frustration.

"Happy, Rachel?"

"Very," she said with a large smile, looking self-satisfied.

"What has she got to do with this?"

"She hit on me earlier," Blaine said before she could answer, "so I told her I was not exactly into her gender and then that there was, you know, _you_and then she took it on her to have us date before Christmas."

"Which is a good thing, because at this rate, you were going to have white hair before you did," Wes cut in. "David and I were about to lock you in a closet together so you would get rid of that freaking sexual tension."

"I was going to ask him out!"

"That would have been very different from before," David said dryly. "You two go out every single day. When it's not lunch together it's BreadstiX or a walk outside or the movies or, I don't know, freaking shopping sessions."

"Also, _oh my god_kiss him already so he stops looking at you like he is right now!" Wes snapped, waving his hands in Kurt's direction. "I feel like my virility is being sucked out of me the longer I watch him stare at your lips. No offense, Kurt."

Blaine rolled his eyes before turning in his chair to face Kurt.

"So. Is that what you want? To be my—my boyfriend?" he asked as he took his hands.

"Which part of 'I am madly in love with you oh my god Blaine stop talking and kiss me already' don't you get? I'm not a girl you need to woo forever. That's the upside of being gay, you know. I want it as much and as often as you do. We have the same hormones."

Blaine's mind began reeling with unholy thoughts as he stared at Kurt and saw the way the boy was looking at him.

"Fucking kiss him and seal the deal!" Rachel ordered, banging her fist on the table.

"Wow, Rachel, you just swore. Don't do that a—" Kurt could not finish his sentence because Blaine leaned in and kissed him hard.

Kurt kissed him back just as hard, his hands going on each side of Blaine's neck before inclining his head slightly, allowing Blaine to deepen the kiss now that their noses were not in the way.

"Alright, you can stop now," David commented when Blaine pushed his tongue past Kurt's lips.

"Seriously, stop," Wes added.

"Guys, there are children around. We did not ask you to make out. A single peck would have been enough. Seriously, stop it," Rachel joined in.

"Air is necessary. Breathing is nice. Oh my god, what kind of lungs do you have?"

That last comment from Wes made Blaine realise that yeah, he was kind of running out of breath. He broke the kiss, pecking Kurt's lips once last time before leaning back in his chair with a satisfied smile.

"We'll continue this later tonight," Blaine told Kurt when he saw him looking forlorn. "My room, eight o'clock."

"Wait, no. No, no, no. We share a room. No," David and Wes protested at the same time.

"Well, Kurt's roommates are not as cool and understanding as you guys. I suggest you find something to do tonight so you leave us alone."

"If we find the slightest hint of anything on our beds, we will murder the both of you."


End file.
